Teodor Lippmaa was an outstanding Estonian ecologist and botanist. He used and developed the chromatographic adsorption method of M. S. Tswett studying the pigments ecology of subarctic plants and communities already in the 19205. In the 1930 s he studied thoroughly the flora and vegetation of Estonia, started exact vegetation mapping of this country, dealt with many theoretical problems of ecology and vegetation science (life-forms system, vegetation classification, structure of plant communities, etc.), composed a vegetation classification of Estonia on the basis of synusiae, etc. Many ideas of T. Lippmaa are followed and developed by Estonian botanists and in modern ecology and vegetation science.